Limoges, best known for its porcelain and enamel, is home to a thriving bedlinen and carpet industry said to be worth more than 14 million euros a year to the country. But EU officials said that was only a quarter of the value of Germany's textiles trade with Pakistan and only a 10th that of Italy.

The issue was just one of a number of allegedly "protectionist" objections raised to plans to speed a special trade deal through in response to the economic plight facing Pakistan following devastating floods which have killed 1,600 people, displaced 20 million and now threaten the nation's economy.

The UK Prime Minister insisted the scale of the economic crisis warrants a European response way beyond the vital immediate humanitarian effort already mounted by the EU.

And free-trade objections raised at a one-day summit in Brussels were seen as undermining the summit's determination to reflect the EU as an international player.

Summit conclusions due to be agreed on Thursday afternoon said: "The European Union must be an effective global actor, ready to share in the responsibility for global security and to take the lead in the definition of joint responses to common challenges. (The Union) Remains the largest donor to countries in need, it is the first trading power in the world and it has developed a common security and defence policy supported by crisis management tools which should be further reinforced."

Failure to settle the outlines of a preferential trade deal with Pakistan would be embarrassing - but a second embarrassment was averted when EU foreign ministers, attending the summit, endorsed a sweeping new trade deal with South Korea.

It had been threatened by Italian concerns over the threat to Italy's car industry from cheap South Korean imports, but those objections were settled overnight by delaying the introduction of reduced export tariffs on cars.

On a trade deal with Pakistan, one UK official at the summit said: "We want a political commitment to find a way to reduce tariffs on Pakistan imports in the near to medium term: we'd like something in a matter of months."